Research being led at Armagh Observatory and Planetarium could help answer one of humanity’s oldest questions and pave the way for greater understanding of the origins of life, according to the astronomer leading the project.
Prof Jorick Vink is examining the first generation of stars that formed after the Big Bang to understand when and how light was first emitted into the universe.
It is the subject of a new €2 million grant from the European Research Council announced on Sunday which he said could be “transformational” for both the observatory and research worldwide.
While the project will focus on how the first stars illuminated the cosmos, it could lead to further understanding of how the elements essential to life were created, he explained.
“The first stars were really the moment of our own origins,” he told The Irish Times’s Early Edition podcast.
“These early stars produced the carbon in our bones, the oxygen we breathe and the iron in our blood”. Decades of research has not fully explained how the universe’s most abundant elements were produced.
“We are going back to the very start, which could help reconstruct that story. We can test how these stars lit up the early universe”.
It was the end of a period referred to as the cosmic dark ages, a mysterious era before the first stars appeared and flooded the universe with light. Understanding what happened during this period is regarded as one of the most important unanswered questions in modern astrophysics.
Recent observations from the James Webb Space Telescope have allowed astronomers to glimpse some of the earliest galaxies ever detected, providing fresh evidence of the universe’s first generations of stars. Yet scientists still lack reliable models explaining how those stars formed and evolved.
The grant will fund a team of researchers in Armagh over the years to come, creating “new opportunities for early-career scientists”, Vink said.
He believes the benefits of the investment will extend beyond science and put Armagh on the map.
“Societies that invest in fundamental blue-skies research do really well historically compared with those that don’t,” he said.
“This is world-leading and the work we do in Armagh will have consequences not just here but all over the world.”
